Brian Baldinger served as color commentator for the Eagles preseason games for the Eagles Television Network. Photo by Todd Bauders

It was a lazy hot August afternoon in the Lehigh Valley with a cloud of humidity that was crying for a gulley wash.

It was lazy for everyone except the 2012 Philadelphia Eagles who were hard at work. The pads were popping, sweat was dripping, and coaches were hollering. I was standing in the middle of the defensive line while their maniacal coach, Jim Washburn, was enjoying every second of the action, oblivious to the obscene climate.

The camaraderie that afternoon from the deep and talented defensive line was infectious.
Washburn was shouting for a defensive tackle to go replace the man-child rookie, Fletcher Cox. Veteran Cullen Jenkins grabbed his bucket and sprinted for the field to replace the winded rookie.

The defensive line was dominating the action and the trash talking from that tight knit group back to the offense was like a scene from the Chorus Line. One jab after another was shouted from the deepest membranes of their lungs like young marines on a morning march.

I was loving the theatre. Next to me was the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, Jeffrey Lurie. For the past 19 years, the Eagles owner has headed to camp to watch his team prepare for the upcoming season, wondering if this was going to be the year.

The year that would produce the first of many championships that was promised the day he purchased the team from Norman Braman a generation ago.

Lurie was enjoying the live action. He too is a fan of the coaching style of Jim Washburn. Any football enthusiast would as well. There is pure passion in what Washburn brings to his tight knit group and the demands are what every great teacher would desire. To ultimately bleed every ounce of talent and promise out of the pupil.

The conversation between Lurie and me turned towards what makes a championship team. It is a formula which has painfully escaped the Eagles brass. It is evident by Lurie’s hair which has faded from dark to peppered to shocking white while owning this team. He also has done everything that an owner should do and beyond.

Under his direction the Eagles have built a state of the arts stadium and practice facility. The practice fields that day were lined with coaches and scouts and support staffs that are the envy of every team in the league. Trades have been made and free agents were aggressively pursued to add talent to the team.

Large investments were made in productive veterans that would help them remain in Eagle green uniforms for years to come. All of this while Mr. Lurie has stayed in the background while he deferred to the experts that are handsomely paid to guide the team.

Yet there is no hardware to show for his annual efforts. It frustrates me how the team has underachieved while he privately struggles to provide them with everything they need to achieve what every passionate fan here so desperately craves.

On this hot August afternoon our conversation was on elements of a championship team. I hinted that every championship team has major contributions form players that no one expected from during the dog days of training camp. The owner smiled at me and fully agreed. Without prompting Mr. Lurie blurted out to me…’like Victor Cruz.’ I responded, ‘PRECISELY.’

Last year at this time the NY Giants were lamenting the loss of Steve Smith who had signed a free agent contract with the Eagles. How could the Giants replace the talented receiver who only a year earlier set a NY Giant team record with 106 receptions?

Little did they know at the time that a 3rd year college free agent from UMASS would go on to lead the Giants in receiving and set off a national craze with a salsa dance. He came from nowhere to energize a team that would win their final 6 games and capture their second title in 4 years and the salsa dance would once again be performed by Cruz in the end zone on Super Bowl Sunday.

Cruz was teamed with their former first round pick, Jason Pierre-Paul, who after a college career that would last all of 7 games, emerged as the most dominant defensive lineman in the NFL today. Neither Cruz nor Pierre-Paul were opening day starters for the Giants vs. the Washington Redskins.

Only a year earlier, the Green Bay Packers, would add another championship to a town known affectionately as Title town USA. During their late season romp that ended with a victory vs. the Steelers in the Super Bowl was the emergence of 3 sophomore players. Clay Mathews, BJ Raji and Jordy Nelson all grew up quickly to help lead the team in so many different ways.

All of the talk that afternoon about the relationship between championships and the emergence of young stars got me the Owner thinking about which Eagle players who are not being discussed or analyzed today could be those important pieces to lead this Eagle team to a long awaited title.

Corralled by the defensive line during our discussion it was easy to signal out tow former first round selections, Brandon Graham and Fletcher Cox. Much is expected from both and they could be talents that could springboard this team.

The owner tossed out a name that never gets mentioned, Curtis Marsh; a 3rd round selection that everyone says is talented but raw. I like when scouts tell me a guy is raw. Raw is good in training camp. It means the guy has talent, but the player just doesn’t quite know how to use it yet. Maybe Marsh is a defensive back that takes an interception back for a touchdown in a late December showdown that helps clinch a playoff birth.

In my rookie year in the stone age that was 1982, our 4th round pick, Monty Hunter, did exactly that in a wildcard playoff win vs. the Tampa Bay Bucs which allowed us to move on to face the Green Bay Packers.

I was thinking a few players more obscure and even lower on the depth charts. A guy like Nick Foles at QB impresses me every time I watch him throw. He too is a player that everyone tells me has potential but is too far away. I don’t believe he is nor do I believe he thinks he is too far away. What about Bryce Brown or Brandon Boykin…A 4th rounder and a 7th round pick who have undeniable talent but may need part of the season to grow up and understand the game.

Imagine the headlines…”THE KILLER BEES’…sting again…That’s the fun and the magic of this time of the year. Who could those young players be that are going to give this team a lift with their infectious enthusiasm, raw ability, and blissful outlook? If you look closely, I think there are players who can be the magic dust in a magical season.

There is a great saying that sums up the preceding paragraphs. “Hope springs eternal.” Last year Victor Cruz danced the salsa all the way to a championship. Mr. Lurie even blurted his name out on hot August afternoon to me. Who is going to be our spark this year?

DAMMIT, I wanna dance this year on Bourbon Street.